Xbox 360 Kinect Game Review: MotionSports

Can you kick it?


Xbox 360 Kinect Game Review: MotionSports

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

by Nizam Ali

10:05 AM Feb 22, 2011

There is a small degree of similarity between Kinect Sports and MotionSports for the Xbox360, yet both promise a unique experience. Like Kinect Sports, MotionSports offers six sports genres to try your hand at: Skiing, soccer, football, horseback riding, boxing and hang-gliding.

Although Kinect Sports offers boxing and football as well, the gameplay between titles for both games is fairly different. I suspect there'll be a little confusion between "soccer" and "football" (which we know as American football) for some, but a glance at the cover image should clear things up straight away.

Once you load the game, an eager male announcer voice welcomes you and takes you through some calibration exercises. Here you are requested for three specific poses for capture - but rather than follow instructions, just strike any pose you want, the sillier the better. You'll know what they're for eventually ...

From the main menu, you can choose to try out the six sports genres in any order. Within skiing, there are a few events focussing on different segments of the sport, with ski jumping the most fun option.

In the Soccer module, you're placed in the shoes of a goalkeeper or a striker and you take turns to deny and score shots, with some challenges thrown in. Instead of a direct representation of your movement, gameplay is relegated to a "choose direction of reaction" format before the animation sets in.

Boxing will have you go head-to-head with an opponent. The game doesn't allow you to rush in with jabs - you can only throw a powerful blow after a series of successful parry moves.

Horseback riding is rarely included in many sports games so it's a welcome addition here. Gameplay is simple; you basically lead your horse through a series of obstacles.

Hang-gliding is my favourite module, because it allows you to glide through locations like canyons and a city while attempting to catch updrafts to glide further and satisfy challenges, before attempting to land on the bullseye.

While you can play these games with up to three friends in the same room by taking turns, some have competitive modes for two. The controls are pretty intuitive, though not always consistent. At times, your motions just fail to register and you'll have you retry a game over and over.

Still, glitches aside, MotionSports is still a worthy purchase among the current limited selection of titles.



VERDICT

MotionSports is a nice alternative to Kinect Sports, and makes clever use of the camera features of the Kinect sensor.



This review is only available online.

Source: www.todayonline.com